A former colleague, Representative Edward J. Markey, was rankled by the prospect, friends say, in part because of the inevitable poll that would gauge Frank’s popularity as senator. A high approval rating for Frank could overshadow Markey’s candidacy in the special election campaign that would be needed to fill the seat permanently.

In a statement today, Markey disputed feeling any discomfort over a Frank appointment, labeling the suggestion “completely false.”

… Frank, a Newton Democrat, declared again Friday that he would “absolutely not” be a candidate in the special election, even if Patrick awarded him the job on an interim basis. But he also was similarly Shermanesque about his desire to leave Congress, an opinion he has since changed.

Well … these cats have been in DC together for a long time. If there were no tension whatsoever I’d be shocked. And this is Mr. Cuddles himself Barney Frank we’re talking about.

Johnson raises the idea that — contrary to Frank’s indications — Frank would use his appointment to run for the seat himself. That would be lame. As I’ve said, this is Ed Markey’s moment in history. He’s the guy we need long term, for the remainder of Kerry’s term and for at least another.

I doubt Frank would go back on his word. And I doubt that there would be much support in the party for him continuing on, even if he did.

is silly, IMHO – it’s just insider DC yakkity-yak to generate a story.

However, there may well be tension between Markey and Frank (over redistricting among other things), and it is certainly possible that Markey is worried about an interim Senator Frank getting a lot of headlines. To which I say, tough. If Frank is the best guy for the interim job (and I think he is), he should get it. Markey’s solution to Frank generating headlines is to generate some damn headlines himself – say, by running an aggressive campaign on the issues that we all think he could talk about loudly and well if he wanted to, by proclaiming his support for a new and improved People’s Pledge, stuff like that. I have absolutely no sympathy for Markey or anyone else being worried that Barney Frank will do too good a job as interim Senator. I don’t want a coat-holder in the Senate for five months if we can avoid it.

First, months ago Patrick was asked if he would like in the Kirk appointment demand that the interim appointee not run. Patrick didn’t want to rule it out. Why the F*** not? Now we have this bullshit to deal with.

Second, Markey is upset that Frank might poll positively in an interim position because that would somehow overshadow him? Are you kidding me? I hope that’s not the case. I’ll withhold comment if this is actually true because my comments will not be pleasant.

I’m a huge Frank fan, and I very much want him to be our interim Senator.

But as he said we won’t run in the special election, a lot of us — including myself — would not vote for him in the primary. We’d vote for Markey or Capuano instead. And the press would no doubt bring this up, thus informing the uninformed primary voter.

The Trib and Sun times are guilty of this in Chicago. Speculation of feuds, family and inter family rivalries, marr the coverage of the local political scene. The Kellers and Carrs of the world don’t help. It looks like we will get a Kerry confirmation in the next few weeks, it might be good for Kerry to step down now, let the Gov appoint Frank now, have Frank make an ironclad promise not to run, have Frank endorse Markey, and get on with it. That ENDS the speculation and sets us up for a quick primary and strong general election.

The convention ended a primary fight, gave a great boost to Elizabeth Warren, and allowed the formation of various coordinated campaigns. If there was bad PR, it must have been limited to the DeFranco campaign.